"the sun of the burning coal?" Was it originally from any inherent taste for poetry? Most assuredly not. When the expression was first used, his language did not afford any single word to describe a spark. Hence a circuitous and tropical mode of speech was imposed upon him, not by choice, but by necessity. In fact, the result will be just the same whenever a foreigner, imperfectly acquainted with the language of a country, has to converse with the natives of it. He will supply his defects by various expedients, and by sundry verbal combinations, which are unnecessary for those who are fully acquainted with a copious modern tongue.

To persons, then, in early or in half-civilized society, who were more conversant with things than with words, figurative or tropical language would soon, from absolute necessity, become familiar. Would we describe a man who possessed the mingled qualities of courage, generosity, and ferocity, we should, in such a state of society, find it no easy matter to express these abstract qualities in words definitely appropriate; but if we called the man a lion, addressing ourselves to a race of hunters, who were well acquainted with the nature of that animal, we should make them, without further trouble, perfectly understand what we meant. On the same principle, we should call a dangerous, malicious, and crafty man, a snake in the grass; a peaceful, industrious man, an ox; an ambitious, quick-sighted man, a hawk, or an eagle. Accordingly, names of this description are perpetually assumed by the savage warriors of the Indian tribes, or conferred upon them by their warlike followers. One man is the tiger, another the lion, a third the great buffalo, a fourth the bloodhound. Thus we see that the language of defective civilization becomes, of necessity, a language of symbols. If such then, of necessity, was the language of defective civilization, such also would be the first rude attempt to express it in writing. The earliest manuscripts were neither more nor less than pictures; but these pictures closely followed the analogy of spoken language. Hence, like spoken language itself, they were partly proper and partly tropical. A member of a half-civilized community, who wished to express the naked idea of a man, would rudely delineate the picture of a man; but such a delineation would be insufficient if he wished to express a man marked by such or such qualities.

How, then, would he manage when in this difficulty? He would obviously transfer to the sand, or the leaf, or the brick, or the rock, the image which had become familiar to him in his ordinary conversation. A brave, ferocious, and generous man, he was already accustomed to denominate a lion; if, therefore, he wished to express such a man in writing, he would delineate a lion. In a similar manner, the person whom he denominated a snake he would paint a snake; the person whom he called an ox he would paint an ox; the person whom he called an eagle he would paint an eagle. But such a mode of delineation is no other than the tropical hieroglyphic, or symbol, in its earliest stage of existence; and when once this method of writing had been adopted, the idea upon which it was built would readily suggest another involution. If, on account of his qualities, a single individual might aptly be represented by a lion, or an eagle, or an ox, it were easy and natural to employ the same symbols for the purpose of representing a body corporate or a nation; for nation bears to nation the same reference that individual bears to individual. Hence, according to their attributed characteristics, this nation would be the lion, that would be the bear, and that would be the tiger. Such a mode of writing, which, in fact, constitutes one great branch of the tropical hieroglyphics of Egypt, gave rise to the science of heraldry;

the general prevalence of that science in all ages, under one modification or another, perpetuated and extended the form of speech to which it owed its origin. Thus the dove was the ancient banner of the Assyrian empire alluded to in Psalm 68. Thus, also, the eagle was the standard of the Roman empire; and this circumstance similarly produced that parabolical prophecy of our Lord, "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." (Matt. 24. 28; Luke 17. 37.) The same cause produced the same language among the minstrels of the Middle Ages; nor is such phraseology obsolete in the present day. Perhaps the most ancient specimen of the apologue, which has been handed down to us from primitive times, is the parable of Jotham. (Judges 9. 8-15.) But such a mode of composition is by no means peculiar to the Israelites. The Roman fable of Menenius Agrippa, the Indian fables of Pilpay, and their direct imitation, the Greek fables of Esop, all belong to the same class, and have all sprung from that phraseology which owed its own origin to the poverty of primeval language. Every apologue is a speaking hieroglyphic; and if the story set forth in it be delineated by the pencil or the graving tool, a painting or a sculptured hieroglyphic is at once produced. We have already adverted to what are ordinarily termed the three different systems of writing in Egypt, though they are not properly three distinct systems of writing, but rather three different modes of tracing the characters of the same system; each of which, however, must be separately studied in order to their being satisfactorily deciphered.

The power of imitative characters to express ideas must, in the nature of things, be very limited. It is probable that out of this necessity has arisen the contrivance of symbolic or figurative characters. They may be thus defined; a character representing the form of one object, and conveying the idea of another. There are various methods of effecting this in the ancient Egyptian writings.

(1.) A part is substituted for the whole. Thus two arms, the one with a shield, the other with a battle-axe, denote an army or combat; so the head of a goose ➜ denotes geese, and the two pupils of the .. the eyes. eyes (2.) The effect is often put for the cause, the cause for the effect, and the instrument for the work produced. Thus the crescent with the horns downwards, denoted a month; a column of smoke issuing from a chafing-dish denotes fire. So the picture of the sun O represents the day, of which it is the cause; and so also the idea of letters, or writing, is denoted by the representation of the reed, or pencil, combined with the inkhorn and palette, which were the instruments employed in writing the hieroglyphics.

(3.) Some fancied resemblance between the objects represented and the idea conveyed, has, in many cases, prompted the substitution. Thus contemplation, or vision, was denoted by the eye of the hawk, because that bird was supposed to possess the power of gazing upon the sun. Priority, or pre-eminence, is conveyed by the foreparts of a lion. A sovereign is denoted by a bee, because this insect submits to a regular government; and by a fox, or jackal, one of the priestly scribes whose duty it was to take account of the revenues of temples, &c., over which they ought to watch like faithful dogs.

(4.) The resemblance between the object represented and the idea conveyed, was often enigmatical, very distant and obscure; in many there was no relation whatever between the two but that of pure convention. So they symbolized justice by an ostrich feather because all the feathers in the wing of that bird are equal; and a palm branch signified the year, because they supposed that this tree grew twelve branches every year,

and one every month. A hawk perched upon a standard conveyed the idea of God, or Divine Being, and a basket, woven, of rushes of different colours that of lord, or ruler.

(5.) Another species of symbol was also discovered by the industry and analytical tact of Champollion. It arises out of a peculiarity of the language of ancient Egypt, which it has in common with the Chinese: the employment of the same sound to express many different ideas. Taking advantage of this circumstance to render their writing more intelligible, the representation of one object was made the symbol of another idea, because both were denoted by the same sound, or nearly so, in the spoken language. Thus the character is the picture of the thigh of some animal, dressed and prepared for sacrifice or the table, which in Egyptian is ya sha, and in this primary sense it is frequently used in the texts; but it is quite as frequently applied also in passages where it has been ascertained to mean "to be born of, or descended from;" because the word ya sha also means "to be born" in the spoken language. The hatchet, named TEP ter, is one of the commonest symbols of "God or Divine Being," because that idea was denoted by the same sound TEP. The weaver's shuttle XX is the symbol of the goddess Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, because the Coptic word for that instrument is IT, Nat.

The idea of a physician is frequently represented by a species of duck, the name of which was CHIN: the Egyptian word for physician was also CHINI. This mode of suggesting words by pictures is extensively used in the written system of the Chinese; and is allied to that whereby the phonetic characters have been formed. Thus the following Chinese characters may serve to illustrate this remark:

737

The preceding is a female winged sphinx, carved on a block of black granite. "It exhibits," says Spineto after Champollion, "a perfectly Egyptian specimen of the mystico-symbolic style. The sphinx was an emblem of strength and wisdom, the body being that of a lion, and the head human. The name on the cartouche in front is Tmauhmot. (The vulture, the emblem of maternity; the half circle, a mark of the feminine; the sign for ma, beloved; for uh; and the symbol of Mout, also a goddess, with the sign of the feminine. Over the cartouche is the sun's disk, and ostrich feathers indicating honour.) She was the daughter of Horus, a king of the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, contemporary with the Mosaic age. This, then, is a symbolical image of the queen herself; and the lotus flowers beneath are evidently, though emblematically, taken for the Nile, and for the entire country of Egypt. The sphinx raises a hand in the attitude of protection. The whole, then, appears to be in praise of a monarch, and to signify monument raised to the memory of Queen Tmauhmot, styled the guardian and protectress of the land of Egypt.

We here give some Mexican symbols from Clavigero, to show that a similar principle obtained in the New World.

Mexican Symbols. Nos. 2, 3.

No. 2 is a symbol of one of their cities, Atotonilco; it is an earthen pot put upon three stones, in the manner the Indians are accustomed to keep it over a fire; and in the mouth of the pot is the figure for water. Atotonilco signifies "in hot water," or the place of the baths.

No. 3 is a Mexican traditional symbolic representation of the deluge. The human head and bird in the water denote the drowning of men and animals. They likewise represent a ship with a man on it, as that vessel, according to their tradition, in which one man and woman were saved to perpetuate their race. The corner

figure is the mountain Colhuacan (always thus represented when alluded to), on which they disembarked. The pigeon is the bird, they say, which communicated speech to man, who was born dumb after the deluge; the numerous twigs are the symbols of the multitude of languages taught; these twigs are always used in the

Mexican writings for "words" or "languages." There "languages." There is an accompanying painting to this, consisting of fifteen persons, showing the fifteen families the race separated into on the confusion of tongues.

The following is a curious specimen of a labour song, taken from Champollion, (for which we are indebted to

Tread ye out

the author of the Antiquities of Egypt, illustrative of the Sacred Scriptures ;) it is inscribed over a man driving two yoke of oxen, treading out a floor of corn, on a tomb at Eilethyas in Egypt. The first word, which signifies the act of treading out, is the Coptic word & hi, which has the same meaning, and was probably the sound uttered by the drivers to stimulate these animals. This accounts for the repetition. Like all similar songs, in all countries, it is rude and simple; but nevertheless the construction is rhythmical. It may be rendered thus:

Tread out for yourselves, Tread out for yourselves,

O oxen !

And might thus be paraphrased in English :

Heigho, heigho, oxen, tread the corn faster; The straw for yourselves, the grain for your master. This ancient strain furnishes a suitable comment upon the Scripture precept in reference to this operation of agriculture: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn," (Deut. 25. 4,) which is quoted by the Apostle Paul in First Timothy (5. 18,) with the addition, "and the labourer is worthy of his reward." The song before us would seem to imply that this merciful injunction was not the custom in Egypt, but the monuments show that the Egyptians, like the Jews, suffered the ox to tread out the corn unmuzzled.

We have before observed in the article EGYPT, that the phonetic characters are the pictures of physical objects, denoting not ideas but letters. The principle upon which this alphabet has been constructed is simple. and curious. The object depicted has been made the representative of the sound with which its Egyptian name commenced. This mode of constructing an alphabet did not originate in Egypt, nor is it peculiar to the hieroglyphic system of that country. The same principle is distinctly perceptible in the alphabets of the race of Shem. The ancient alphabets in use among the the Hebrews and the nations allied to them, are all constructed upon exactly the same principle. The names of the letters all commence with the sounds they severally signify, which are also the Hebrew names of visible objects. The resemblance to these objects is sufficiently traceable in the existing forms of many of the letters, to prove that they were originally pictures of them. We need only cast our eye over the following table in order to convince ourselves of this fact.

MESNEM

(The Coptic word, which signifies" to tread out," is & driver; it is here denoted by the letter

- Door-post

Shin

who are

your masters.

It will be observed that there is a traceable though not very marked resemblance between the form of a beth, and the outline of an Oriental house with a flat roof; the letter gimel, also retains some analogy to the form of a camel, whence its name is derived; the resemblance is more decided in the letter daleth, which is evidently a door-post. In the last form, the remains of the original picture are sufficiently obvious.

• The principle applied in the formation of alphabetic | signs by the Egyptians, we now find to have been known and used also by a tribe of men, inhabiting a country which the unanimous voice of all ancient authority declares to have been the cradle of the whole human race after its destruction by the Flood. It existed therefore among the descendants of Shem, and the descendants of Mitzraim, the Egyptians, and was applied in the languages which were peculiar to them. It was highly improbable that either of these nations transmitted the art to the other; because in many instances wherein this has occurred, it is the characters themselves that are transmitted, their names and forms, not the principle of their formation; and it is still more improbable that a principle so curious and recondite should have been discovered in two nations independently of each other. Such a supposition is contradicted by all analogy and all experience. Another fact has also been established respecting the alphabets of these two neighbouring races. They constructed their alphabets on the same principle, without borrowing from each other a single character, or the name of a character, as appears to be generally the case in later transmissions of the art of writing from nation to nation; and yet the two people had from the remotest antiquity been in very close intercourse with each other.

The descendants of Shem were permitted to retain not only the principle upon which an alphabet was constructed, but its proper use as an alphabet. The Semitic races have always written alphabetically. They were also permitted to take up their abode in countries not far removed from the scene of the confusion of tongues. (Gen. 10. 21-24.) The Semitic alphabets were the root whence all other alphabets were derived. The structure of the language of ancient Egypt is a writing of pictures, expressing the ideas of a language of pictures. The roots of this language prove to be, according to the tradition, literally the cries of animals: everything, as far as possible, being named from the sound produced by it. The verbs and adjectives were, many of them, probably all (for the subject is still under investigation) the names of objects animate or inanimate, suggesting the peculiarities of their appearance and habits; as a camelopard signified to be long, to extend; a wolf, to be cunning; a scarlet ibis, to be red. To this extent all was picture in the language as well as in the writing. It also consists of a comparatively small number of sounds; the same sound expressing many different ideas, probably because different qualities of the same animal were thus variously employed. So that we can hardly arrive at any other conclusion than that the language and the writing arose together.

On the foundation of the hieroglyphic system is built the entire mode of the pagan interpretation of dreams. They did not interpret vaguely and loosely, according to the accidental humour of each particular soothsayer; but they proceeded according to certain fixed and definite rules, which rules themselves were founded upon the figurative language of symbols. Thus a wide spreading tree, under the shade of which both men and animals might repose, was the hieroglyphic of a powerful and wide-ruling prince; doubtless, because such a prince had been so denominated during an early stage of society, when ideas were more copious than words. Hence Daniel scrupled not to interpret the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, relative to a tree which first extends its branches far and wide, and which afterwards is hewn down to the ground, upon the acknowledged and familiar principle that such an hieroglypic bore such a signification. (Dan. 4. 10-27; compare Ezek. ch. 31.) Hence, also, on the self-same principle, the Median astrologers

739

interpreted the dream of Astyages, that a vine sprung forth from his daughter, and rapidly overspread the whole of Asia. Hence, likewise, the Persian Magi founded their interpretation on the basis of this identical principle, when consulted by Xerxes relative to his dream, that he was crowned with the wreath of an olivetree which covered all the earth, but which suddenly. and totally disappeared.

Thus, because poverty of language had anciently produced a figurative mode of expression, heaven, from its exalted situation, was made the symbol or hieroglyphic of supreme royal power. Consequently, if a king dreamed that he ascended into heaven, the ancient Indians, and Persians, and Egyptians, as we learn from Achmetes, interpreted his dream to signify that he would obtain the pre-eminence over all other kings.

Such, according to Faber, Daubuz, and many other eminent expositors, is the principle on which is built the figurative language of prophecy. Like the ancient hieroglyphics, and like those non-alphabetic characters which are derived from them, it is a language of ideas rather than of words. It speaks by pictures quite as much as by sounds; and through the medium of those pictures, rather than through the medium of a laboured verbal definition, it sets forth with equal ease and precision the nature and relation of the matters predicted. Nor is there anything in this circumstance, either strange in itself, or derogatory to the all-wise spirit of prophecy.. There is nothing strange, because such language is the natural language of man in a primitive state of society;. there is nothing derogatory to the Holy Spirit, because when God designs to converse with men, He must use the language of man. In fact, it was not without abundant reason that this ancient phraseology was chosen as the vehicle of prophecy rather than the unfigured language of highly cultivated nations. The Scriptures in their ultimate use were not designed for this people or that people in particular, but for the whole world. Hence it was meet that their predictions should be conveyed in what may be termed a universal language. But the only universal language in existence is the language of hieroglyphics. To understand this character, we have not the least occasion to understand the spoken language of the nation which uses it, as may be remarked in the case of the Threshing Song, which we have given from the tombs of Egypt. Those for instance who have learned the import of the characters employed by the Chinese, can read their books without understanding a syllable of their spoken language, because this character not being alphabetic, is the representation not of words but of things. Since the language of hieroglyphics then is the sole universal language, it was made, with very good reason, rather than naked unfigured language, the vehicle of prophecy. In the use of this language, there is by no means that obscurity and uncertainty which some half infidel objectors would pretend. Persons of such a stamp take up the prophecies of Daniel and St. John, which are almost throughout a continued hieroglyphic; and because they encounter a variety of recondite symbols, they hastily pronounce the whole to be unintelligible. They might with as much reason throw aside a Chinese inscription as incapable of being deciphered: without a key neither can be understood; but when the key is procured, the book will very readily be opened. Now the key to the Scriptural hieroglyphics is furnished by Scripture itself; and when the import of each hieroglyphic is thus ascertained, there is little difficulty in translating, as it were, the hieroglyphical prophecy into the unfigured phraseology of modern language. Both the elements and the principle of exposition will be very much the same as those on which the

ancient astrologers or soothsayers rested their system of interpretation.

Thus, when once it is known that a wild beast is the symbol of an idolatrous and persecuting empire, and when the empire intended has been satisfactorily ascertained, it matters not whether this deed or that deed be verbally ascribed to the empire, or symbolically ascribed to the wild beast. Either mode of speech is equally intelligible; for whatever is predicated of the hieroglyphic, is predicated of the empire which the hieroglyphic represents. Daniel, for instance, expressly tells us that the ram and the he-goat, which make so conspicuous a figure in one of his visions, are the Medo-Persian empire and the Grecian empire. Where, then, is the difficulty of understanding the hieroglyphical prophecy; and who does not see, just as plainly as if the unfigured language of history had been employed, that the overthrow of the ram by the he-goat means the overthrow of the Medo-Persian empire by the Grecian? The only difference between the language of prophecy and the language of symbols is this: in the former, words are the signs of things; in the latter, hieroglyphics are the signs of things. When the import of a word is ascertained, we learn the thing denoted by that word. When the import of the hieroglyphic is ascertained, we learn the thing denoted by that hieroglyphic.

In either case, the elements of the language must first be learned, but when that has been accomplished, the rest will follow, of course, whether the language in question be verbal or hieroglyphical. In verbal language, words are the signs of things. Different words, however, are frequently used in all languages to express nearly the same thing; whence they are termed synonymous; and the use of them, so far from making a language obscure, renders it more copious, and, consequently, more beautiful. But in some instances, the matter is precisely reversed, and the same word is used to express different things. Whenever this occurs, a degree of obscurity, which is a manifest defect in a language, is necessarily introduced; and the obscurity is greater or less, both according as the same word represents a greater or a less number of different things, and in proportion as its context enables us less or more to ascertain the precise meaning designed to be annexed to it in any particular passage. Daniel and St. John, whose writings exhibit the most perfect and systematic specimens of Hebrew hieroglyphical composition, frequently use different symbols to express the same thing; but they never use a single symbol to express different things, unless such different things have a manifest analogical resemblance to each other. Hence the language of symbols, being purely a language of ideas, is, in one respect, more perfect than any verbal language ever known and employed; it possesses the varied elegance of synonyms, without the obscurity which springs from the use of ambiguous terms.

In taking up the particular department of Scripture prophecy according to these views, we find it to be constructed partly on abstract ideas, and partly on direct symbols or hieroglyphics. That which is constructed on abstract ideas is purely metaphorical or allegorical. Thus: (1.) Life denotes existence; and since existence may be either moral or political, it thence variously denotes either moral or political existence.

(2.) Sores are ill digested humours in the body politic, after they have broken out into overt action. In a theological sense, they denote various degrees of open profligacy and apostacy, according to their various degrees of putridity.

(3.) Sickness is a low state of political health. In a theological sense, it is a low state of piety and religion.

(4.) Death is the extinction of existence, whether that existence be moral or political.

(5.) Slaying denotes the infliction of moral or political death.

(6.) Revival signifies the recovery of the life which has been lost by moral or political death.

(7.) The resurrection from the dead means the resuscitation of a defunct body ecclesiastical or political. (8.) The lying unburied for a short time is the remaining politically or ecclesiastically dead for a short time.

(9.) The being not only dead, but buried, is the being politically or ecclesiastically dead for a long time.

(10.) The exposure of dry bones, from which all flesh is wasted away, is the being politically or ecclesiastically dead so long, that nothing remains to the defunct community of its former substance and strength. (11.) Ascension to heaven is the ascending of a revived body politic, after its figurative resurrection, to power and authority.

(12.) The occurrence of the day of judgment, and the coming of the Lord in glory, are employed to represent the temporal judgment of any wicked empire or community through the agency of second causes.

(13.) Blasphemy is apostasy, whether idolatrous or of any other description.

(14.) To hate, after having once loved, an object, denotes the ceasing to be under that influence to which a person was before subject.

(15.) To measure signifies to take an exact account of the thing measured; when something is left unmeasured, it involves the idea of separation.

(16.) To seal, or set a mark upon a person, imports the separation of such a person to the service of him who has imprinted the seal or mark.

(17.) To devour the flesh of any allegorical person, is to plunder him of his substance.

(18.) To eat a prophecy, signifies to receive and digest it, for the purpose of communication.

(19.) To seal up a prophecy is to suffer it to remain unintelligible till its accomplishment.

But prophecy not only borrows its phraseology from abstract ideas; it likewise reveals futurity, through the medium of various absolute symbols, or strictly proper hieroglyphics. One of the largest of these symbolic classes is that which is constituted by the natural world, with its several divisions and various inferior departments and modifications.

These remarks may suffice to give some idea of the figurative and symbolical language used in the prophetical writings. The proper use and import of this language, comprising, as it does, the hieroglyphical system of the ancient Hebrews, seems to have been taught as one great branch of education in those schools of the prophets which are often mentioned in the Old Testament Scriptures. To imagine that man could teach man to predict future events, would be grossly and palpably absurd; but there is nothing incongruous in supposing that the pupils were instructed in the meaning and application of the established prophetic phraseology. Thus initiated, they were prepared, whenever they should receive the illuminings of the Holy Spirit, to communicate them in the technical and conventional phraseology of the schools. All mystical or spiritual interpretations must, therefore, be such as really illustrate, not obscure or perplex, the subject. Agreeably to the sound maxim adopted by divines, they must not be made the foundation of articles of faith, but must be offered only to explain or confirm what is elsewhere more clearly revealed.